One Step Closer
by Peeta Melark
Summary: This is based on the song "One Step Closer" from "the Little Mermaid." Yes, the Broadway musical version. Basically just some Percabeth adorableness. Annabeth, the mermaid, is given her first opportunity to dance. Who teaches her? Perseus Jackson. This is a oneshot, but I might make a bigger story later.


Annabeth stood alone in the darkness, trying to speak, though the effort was futile. She couldn't speak without her voice, not a word, not even a tiny sound. She was still unsteady on her new legs, and she was afraid to walk for fear that she might fall. The dress she wore was heavy. She wanted to feel at home on land.

The door opened. She gasped and spun around, but it was only the prince—Perseus, he had been called. Clumsily, Annabeth tried to curtsey, but her legs didn't want to bend like that. She pitched forward into Perseus's arms, her cheek pressed to his blue-clothed chest. He laughed and she felt the sound ripple through her. She glanced up shyly, blinking carefully. Perseus laughed, helping her back on her own two feet.

"Are you okay?" he chuckled. Annabeth opened her mouth to speak, then remembered she could not. Sadly, she nodded. Perseus smiled graciously. "Good."

Their eyes locked and something flashed between them. The green-eyed prince held out his hand to her. She took it eagerly, wondering what he was doing.

"Who needs words?" he asked, stepping closer to her. "Dancing beats small-talk any day."

Dancing? Annabeth felt her heart soar. For so long, she'd wanted to see dancing, but now _she_ would be dancing. The prince, Perseus, pulled her close to him, holding her up with an arm around her slim waist. Her heart beat faster and faster, heat rising to her face. Perseus took a step back, urging her to follow. Their feet moved like that for a while. It was a steady rhythm, but Annabeth stumbled. She wasn't used to this.

"See?" he said. "If you listen with your feet and your arms and your eyes, you'll see so much more than if you listen with your ears. I can tell so much already without a single word. I can tell that you're nervous, for instance. It's a _totally_ different language."

Annabeth nodded, concentrating on what _he_ might be saying. As she did, he spun her away from him and back. She gasped almost soundlessly. Then she laughed without pitch or volume, just air rushing from her lungs.

"Just let the music wash over you," the prince murmured, spinning them across the dance floor. Their feet moved in perfect unison, like they were one mind and two bodies. For a moment, a soaring, beautiful moment, Annabeth thought she knew what Perseus was saying through his dance. If that wasn't the case, it was a beautiful illusion. Perseus kept talking.

"Let everything else fall away, all right? And then, slowly but surely, the walls we've all put up will fall too. Do you follow?"

Annabeth nodded, though she was uncertain. She didn't know how much help dancing could do. She couldn't speak, and he wouldn't believe her even if she _could_ tell him where she was from, who she was. He wouldn't believe that a little mermaid had saved him from the depths of the tossing, turning sea. He wouldn't believe that this mute, human girl had sung to him on the beach, stroking his face lovingly. He wouldn't ever believe that it had been love at first sight. She was doomed.

But still, she had to believe herself that dancing could tell him some of it. Bravely, she took a step closer and leaned her head on his shoulder. The prince, Perseus, smiled, resting his chin in her thick, blonde hair.

Softly, he murmured, "I feel as though we've met before…"

Annabeth nodded, looking at him with large, grey eyes. Perseus shook his head.

"You're like a girl I remember from a dream." He faltered, stroking her hair gently. "But you can't be that girl." When she pouted, he laughed. "Not because you're not beautiful—which you are… very, very beautiful… But because she was singing."

Wildly, Annabeth tried again to tell him that she couldn't speak because of a spell. Perseus just shook his head, smiling sadly. With a heavy sigh, he said, "I wish you _were_ that girl."

_I am_, Annabeth said. No sound came out. Perseus squinted, reading her lips. Then he shook his head.

"She was singing."

_I used to sing,_ Annabeth wanted to say. She wanted to tell him all about her sisters, and her father, and the Sorcerer Nico di Angelo who had taken her voice. Only… she didn't know what she would say. How could she?

Oh! She scrambled away from Perseus, gesturing for him to let her try. He stepped back, bowing his head, giving her the dance floor. She tried to look graceful, like she was swimming through and ocean. Then she pulled her skirt tightly around her legs, trying to make a tail. She mimicked a concert and rescuing him from the storm, and she even mimicked the way she had stroked his cheek. She tried to show him her terror as she entered the Sorcerer's lair, and she tried to show him the menacing height of Nico di Angelo, the Sorcerer of the deepest waters. She tried to show him in what small manner she could how _terrified _she had been to give up her voice. But the notes left her throat, and her voice was gone. Nico di Angelo laughed as he sent her up to the surface, and then everything had gone dark.

Perseus stood watching her, mouth half open, face blank with blinding shock. He stared at Annabeth like she had grown an extra eye or a fishtail… which she might have.

"You're… You're her!" he cried. "You're the girl from the Oceanside! But that voice… Where is it?"

Annabeth shook her head. Perseus ran forward, picking her up and kissing her. The kiss of true love. But instead of her voice returning, she felt a burning, searing pain in her throat. It felt like something was forcing its way into her neck with hatchets and knives. Then, when the pain stopped, she heard herself sobbing. Heard?

"Are you all right?" Perseus asked. "Annabeth?"

"Fine…" she whispered. "I'm… fine! I can… I can talk!"

Perseus took her hands, holding them to his chest, laughing. Annabeth laughed too, relishing the sound as it issued from her. Three days. She hadn't heard that in _three_ days.

"You can," Perseus agreed.

"I can… Oh my gods!"

Perseus smiled gleefully. "Now can you tell me who you are?"

"Yes," Annabeth declared, looking into those sea green eyes. "My name is Annabeth and, until three days ago, I was a mermaid."

**Yes! I did an abrupt ending… This is based off of the song "One Step Closer" from the Broadway musical ****_The Little Mermaid_****. **


End file.
